Could Roberto Orci & Alex Kurtzman Re-Animate Star Trek?

While many franchises have TV animated series, Star Trek hasn’t gone down that road since the 1970s. Now with Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman seeing success with their animated Transformers series, TrekMovie asked Orci if they might do the same with Trek. His reply on Twitter has launched a lot of speculation. Details below.

Could Orci & Kurtzman animate Trek like they have Transformers?

Star Trek writer/producers Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman followed up their work writing two Transformers feature films by producing the new animated series Transformers Prime on Hub (see below for a clip from this weekend’s episode). The computer-generated series has been well received and this week it garnered six daytime Emmy nominations. And now the success of this series has led to some talk about doing a similar show for Star Trek.

Earlier this morning I sent Roberto Orci a tweet (via @trekmovie) congratulating him and Alex on the six nominations for Transformers Prime. I then followed that up with a suggestion about Star Trek, and Orci replied with an interesting little bit of info:

This exchange has been picked up by a few sites today as news that there is (or possibly is) an animated Star Trek series in development. While it would be great if that were true, at this point it is only something that has been talked about by Orci and Kurtzman. As of now, as far as TrekMovie sources can tell, there is no work being done or planning for a new animated Star Trek series.

However, that doesn’t mean it isn’t a good idea. An animated series is much less expensive than a new live-action series, but can still allow for interesting stories to be developed, including stories that bridge films. An animated show is also a great way to maintain interest in a franchise and especially to help attract new younger fans. Many popular franchises have current animated series in addition to Transformers. The superhero franchises (Batman, Superman, Spider-man) have had animated series for decades, but there are also recent entries from Star Wars and even a Tron animated series in development.

And of course as Orci and Kurtzman have successfully done it with Transformers, they are the natural choice to do it again with Star Trek, assuming Paramount and CBS and Hub (or another network) all want to do it. Hopefully it will happen, but for now it is just a notion.

Until then, we still have the 1970s Star Trek: The Animated Series, which is available on DVD and for free streaming on CBS.com. To give you a taste, check out this cool Star Trek TAS/Star Trek 2009 trailer mashup (by NEO f/x).

Great way to endear these characters, that they have faithfully re-ignited, to kids, who really are the future of the franchise. And if the characters from the movie are off limits…which would be stupid, as they are the characters instantly recognized by kids who loved the movie and it would have instant appeal…the other obvious choice is the early adventures of another Kirk aboard the Kelvin…another crew instantly recognizable by fans of the movie, young and old alike. Even the early adventures of Pike would work, thanks to his exposure in the film. Hope it moves from discussion to production!

@Jonboc good ideas for other series but I can’t see this working outside the context of the movie characters. Hopefully they’ll go that route or not bother. I’d also like to see the same quality to the animation in that when you watch TAS, the character mannerisms and facial movements are all there.

I’d watch a new animated Star Trek series just because it would be the only new Trek on TV. I’d rather they put their efforts into getting another live action show up and running. For goodness sake, make a Starfleet Academy series already!

I don’t know why we haven’t seen a fan re-make of the animated series. I would of figured by now either with CG or even flash someone taking the original audio tracks from the show and just re-doing the visuals to give the characters a little more life and movement

I loved Star Trek: The Animated Series. While it had very 70’s-style animation, the stories were pure Trek. With animation, you don’t have to worry about getting original actors to be able to bring in their characters, and you can do really cool stuff with aliens that would be too expensive with live action. I also have loved the Clone Wars and the animation has really improved in the past year.

Warner Bros. does a great job with the animated features of SUPERMAN and BATMAN, which do not devalue in any way the NOLAN films or SMALLVILLE or the live-action SUPERMAN films. There just part of the entertainment offerings of those iconic characters. Why not the same for STAR TREK?

It’s absolutely necessary. Most fans are in favor of a new animated series. Maybe a Kelvin series. A bridge between the “Enterprise” era and the TOS era. Done with animation similar to that of “The Clone Wars”.